Right away I saw one of his ancestral pathways to one of my favorite ancestral mothers, who is portrayed in Robin Hood. Then I saw another, and another, and another. By the time I finished counting, I found that Matthew has at least 48 different ancestral pathways to Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Family Forest® National Treasure.

There are 16 through King John (son of Eleanor by King Henry II), 30 through Eleanor (daughter of Eleanor by King Henry II), and two through Mary (daughter of Eleanor by King Louis VII of France).

Seeing these types of connections all the time does not keep me from being surprised by new ones I am continually discovering in the Family Forest®.

I once read somewhere that the real purpose of reading is to trap the mind into thinking.

Well it just happened to me while I was reading the new Family Forest® Descendants of Earl Sir Thomas Boleyn ebook. He is a man who has been portrayed by Nick Dunning in 20 episodes of Showtime’s hugely popular series The Tudors. My thinking drifted to the fans of The Tudors, and the fact that millions of them are actually watching portrayals of their own ancestors. Most of them probably haven’t made this AhHa! discovery yet, and you may quite likely be one of them.

For instance consider just one good possibility of a person who may be one of your own ancestors. Thomas Boleyn’s genes began appearing in America at Jamestown, VA at least a decade before the Mayflower arrived. His genes also appeared in Boston and other parts of MA in the 1600s.

According to the ancestral pathways already networked into the Family Forest® National Treasure Edition, Thomas Boleyn’s genes have been born into many locations around the globe, including such diverse places in America such as Reidsville, NC, Jarratt, VA, Topeka, KS, Atlantic City, NJ, Red Rock and Fort Dodge, IA, Vienna Crossroads and Toledo, OH, Buffalo and Brooklyn, NY, Portland, OR, Rock Island, IL, Olympia, WA, Bryn Mawr, PA, Newburyport, MA, Houston, TX, Sulphur, OK, Morley, MO, and many more.

The edutaining Family Forest® Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™ and connecting audiences through actual family ties better than any other digital resource, either online or offline, as the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition can easily show you.

Knowledge can be enjoyably empowering, and for the last few years Thanksgiving has meant so much more to me. For most of my life I had no idea that I had any type of connection to the first Thanksgiving. I had almost no awareness beyond the generation before me and the generation after me.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that according to recorded history, I had an ancestor who came to America in the Mayflower. What’s more, he would have been present at the very first Thanksgiving.

This newfound knowledge brings more meaning to this holiday for me, and it is my Thanksgiving wish that those who have not discovered their own personal connection to the first Thanksgiving find it soon.

This wish relates to a really huge number of people. According to estimates I’ve seen, about 35 million people have Mayflower ancestry from one or more of the dozens of Mayflower Pilgrims. That’s about one in ten living Americans, and I’m betting that most of them do not yet know. You may be one of them.

Ancestors-at-a-glance™ charts for Veterans Day 2009. A few were warriors, and the others served or are serving our country in other ways that support American armed forces service people.

Here are some links to new Ancestors-at-a-glance™ charts for Veterans Day 2009. A few were warriors, and the others served or are serving our country in other ways that support American armed forces service people.

Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the famous document that started it all, the Declaration of Independence.

Francis Scott Key in the aftermath of a pivotal battle in our nation’s history, gave us the most well-known inspirational song of our nation, The Star-Spangled Banner.

Hollywood director and producer Dwayne Shattuck and his sister, Hollywood actress and best-selling author Shari Shattuck are first cousins once removed of a good friend of mine here on the Big Island, and they are related to the Angel of the Battlefield and founder of the American Red Cross (ARC), Clara Barton. They also all share Shattuck ancestors with famous Hollywood actor Matt Damon.

Matthew Fox is also said to be a descendant of the victor of the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War, Major-General George Gordon Meade.

The edutaining Family Forest® Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™ and connecting audiences through actual family ties better than any other digital resource, either online or offline, as the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition will show you.

Contrary to what her unusual surname might lead one to believe, Meryl Streep has early American ancestry with much more common surnames, including some who came to America at about the same time as her character’s ancestor, and probably knew each other.

If all of the cousins of the cast and characters of Julie and Julia go to see it, this motion picture will be the largest box office hit ever.

The edutaining Family Forest® Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™ and connecting audiences through actual family ties better than any other digital resource, either online or offline, as the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition will show.

Some of the voices and faces of those celebrities who have brought us over a century of impactful news through radio and television are indelibly etched in our memories. Now millions of us can see that we have actual family ties to some of those voices and faces.

One of the most exciting features of the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition is the ability to generate visually engaging Ancestors-at-a-glance™ fan charts.

The first of many of the free charts we will be posting is for Prince William.

There is a wealth of surprising knowledge on this one-page PDF. Simply use Adobe Acrobat Reader’s zoom and scroll features to explore it.

As the name says, this is simply a glance at Prince William’s ancestry. For greater detail, dozens of centuries of his ancestry beyond ten generations, the source citations behind each note and connections, and much much more, you will be amazed and delighted by what you can discover in the new one-of-a-kind Family Forest® National Treasure Edition.